Ellington

"Tiffany, are you sitting down?" the mom of my daughter's best friend asked me the moment I answered the phone. Then she gave me the news.

The room spun—once, twice, three times—and I grabbed the back of the computer chair to steady myself. My body tingled as the adrenaline raced from brain to toes. My attempts at deep breathing were the futile gulps of a fish out of water.

I'd dreaded the words she'd spoken for 31 years and 9 months, and this woman was with my baby.

I had almost calmed down from the obligatory, letting-one-of-the-chicks-out-of-the-nest hysteria when she called. Hours spent envisioning every horrific scenario known to woman in High Definition color: car wrecks, kidnappings at the park, dog attacks and fires.

"Georgie has cut her leg, and we're taking her to the ER," she told me over the screams of my 9-year-old, an hour and a half away from where I shook in my kitchen.

"We don't think she hit any metal, but possibly a tree limb. Has she had her tetanus? She tripped and rolled down the storm pit. Outside for only five minutes. Talk to her," my pulsing ears heard, unable to get past "ER" until the sound of my child's cry filled my ears.

"My leg, Mama, my leg."

I whispered assurances, shocked that my voice could sound so calm while my insides rebelled.

"Miss Wendy is taking you to the hospital, and Mama's on her way. You'll be just fine, sugar."

I threw on some clothes after she let me go and jumped in my car for the long trip south to Bay Springs.

"I shouldn't have let her go," I told my mom a few minutes later on the phone. "I just knew something was going to happen after that car caught fire down the street. It was a sign from God."

"It was a sign they need a new car, honey, and since when do we have a direct line to God?" she asked, trying to soothe me the way I'd done my own daughter moments before. "It could have happened anywhere."

I drove 90 the rest of the way, hazard lights blinking, only to arrive 11 stitches under the kneecap later to my girl prancing around the waiting room on her crutches like the belle of the ER ball.

"It's no big deal, Mama," she told me, shrugging off my concern. She ignored my entreaties to come home to Jackson so I could protect her in favor of her friend's attention.

"There is a party tomorrow, you know," she informed me.

Not attacked, kidnapped or dead—she was fine, whole and happy, so, I left it alone.

I will freak out the next time she journeys from the nest, but I will let her go, resting assured that she can handle whatever life serves up to her. Somewhat.

Previous Comments

ID

79760

Comment

Yes, I have to comment on my own. So lovely to be included with such a touching bunch of stories. :)

Author

tiffitch

Date

2006-05-11T09:53:37-06:00

ID

79761

Comment

*grins*

Author

Heather

Date

2006-05-15T11:46:49-06:00